Boost Math Confidence Be Your Youngster’S Cheerleader Along Her Mathematical Journey with These Strategies

I'm a Mathematician!

Encouraging your child to see herself as a mathematician can help her learn—and enjoy—math. Use the advice in this guide to improve her confidence and motivation, and she’ll be proud to say, “I’m a mathematician!”

Boost math confidence Be your youngster’s cheerleader along her mathematical journey with these strategies. Stay involved After school, ask your child, “What did you do in math today?” When she fin- ishes math homework, let her explain how she solved a few of the problems. Attend school math nights, open houses, and parent-teacher conferences. You’ll inspire grades, but also ones with good mathematical explanations or her to take pride in her math positive comments from the teacher. work, and she’ll see that her learning is important to you. Offer encouragement Recognize effort If your child struggles with a math concept or procedure, Pay attention to your youngster’s math efforts and accom- remind her of the progress she has made. Say she’s learning plishments, just as you would his athletic or musical achieve- long division. Point out that she learned to divide smaller ments. You might say, “I know you’ve been working hard on numbers, and tell her that she’ll conquer bigger ones, too. If multiplying fractions. Can you double this recipe for me?” she makes a mistake on a quiz or on homework, ask her to Also, display math tests or papers at home on your refrigera-forshow you what part she did right. Maybe she used the correct tor or family bulletin board. Include not only those with high formula but put the decimal point in the wrong place, for instance. She’ll realize that there’s a lot she knows how to do, and she’ll get a chance to learn from her mistakes. Celebrate math ResourcesSend the message that math is fun by letting your Food. Serve “tangram” brownies. Give your youngster youngster plan a math-themed party or family night. a plastic knife to divide a pan of brownies into seven From the invitations to the food and games, there’s shapes (see illustration). Or have guests build 3-D always a place for math! shapes like cubes and pyramids by connecting pretzel sticks with marshmallows. Invitations. For a birthday party, your child could fea- ture a problem about his age. (“Owen will be 648 ÷ Games. Play hopscotch with multiplication 72 years old!”) His guests could RSVP with the facts in the squares. Guests call out answers as answer (9). Or for a movie night, he might write they hop to each problem. Or let your child a math-related clue to help everyone guess the draw circles on an old sheet and write a math film: “We will watch a movie with 250 – 148 problem in each circle. Players throw water bal- dogs.” (Answer: 102 Dalmatians—the sequel to loons at the targets and shout the answers to 101 Dalmatians.) Educatorsthe problem they hit. Intermediate Edition continued

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